


Fractal

by Splintered_Star



Series: constructive interference [1]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Canonical Character Death, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Gen, M/M, Minor Character Death, Pre-Slash, TFA Era, Torture, complex power dynamics, the morality of limited choices, the things we do to survive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:28:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24953041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Splintered_Star/pseuds/Splintered_Star
Summary: FN-2187 forgets to hide and Kylo Ren realizes that he is Force sensitive. He claims the trooper as his student and begins training him in the Force. Destinies and destinies – but there is always a choice.
Relationships: Finn & FN-2003 | Slip, Finn & Kylo Ren, Finn/Kylo Ren
Series: constructive interference [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805965
Comments: 12
Kudos: 62





	Fractal

In another life, this does not happen.

Though neither man ever thinks of it in those terms until much, much later – the one has not yet realized that things can be other than what they are, and the other has always swung between conflicting tugs of Destiny, abandoning one for the pull of the other – it would have been easy for this meeting to never occur. A shift in patrol duty, a different passing impulse - most likely of all, two men so caught up in their own paths that they do not look to any other.

In another life, they do not matter to each other until, years later, they see each other on opposite sides of a fight, two paths diverging in a snowy wood.

But in this life, in this moment –

The stormtrooper known as FN-2187 looks up from his cleaning and the Knight known as Kylo Ren looks away from the visions in front of his eyes.

Through two masks they meet eyes, and in his surprise, FN-2187 forgets to be invisible.

The great dark helmet tilts to one side, and inside of it, Kylo Ren thinks, “….hm.”

FN-2187. Officer track. Specialties: leadership, stealth-

He would be, Kylo Ren thinks. It’s a mystery that there’s anything in the personnel file at all, but then again the man is untrained, unconscious of his power.

Is this what Snoke had felt, seeing the boy who would be Kylo Ren - this sharp spike of /potential/?

Competing destinies war behind his black mask. Kill the trooper, as he killed and will kill the last of the Jedi. Turn him over to Snoke, as he has been bid before. Or…

In this moment, there is a choice to be made. Destiny against Destiny against Destiny – but still a choice.

Vader was rumored to have his own students, Kylo remembers. The Sith rule of two, failing, like all rules do. And Kylo was not a Sith.

Even contemplating this is risky. Snoke might allow him a student of his own, but does not allow him secrets.

And yet, that flash of connection. Kylo Ren felt that glow of potential, a spark that could become a fire – that, and the /pressure/ stifling it, the weight of expectations, and fear so deep it drowns. A hand that will grasp for any tool to escape once he knows that escape is /possible./

It feels right. It feels Destined, inevitabilities lining up by the will of the Force.

Kylo Ren should not keep secrets from his master. But FN-2187 is not the only one who knows how to hide, and Kylo tucks his plans and speculations behind layers of fog in his mind. And that, too, is a choice.

There are choices, more than ever acknowledged.

When Kylo Ren finds him – seeks him out – FN-2187 has choices. He considers them, rapidly, options flashing through his mind. He can refuse, run, try to hide. If he did, his life would be short and his death painful.

There are always choices.

But choices come with a cost, and rarely extend credit.

FN-2187 salutes, and follows Kylo Ren.

“You’re Force sensitive.” Kylo Ren says when he’s pulled FN-2187 to an isolated board room. He says that, like FN-2187 has any idea what that means, no concept of the Force beyond rumors that weren’t supposed to be shared –

FN-2187 has the shaking certainty that this is trouble. Nothing good comes of this kind of attention, and hiding never works when an officer is focusing on him.

“You’re Force sensitive,” Kylo Ren says, “Like me.”

It’s the “like me” that catches his attention – the thought of having anything in common with Kylo Ren, someone so far outside of FN-2187’s experience that he’s not sure of his rank.

Somewhere behind white armor and the partitions in his mind, FN-2187 has always been curious about Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren walked the halls of the Finalizer, a black smear in the ordered grey and white world – uniform torn, posture slouched, so different from anyone else on the ship. His world had always been split into simple categories – the First Order and the Republic, Order and Chaos – and Kylo Ren did not fit, something he didn’t recognize, a part of ‘us’ but also not.

But still, the Force – that was impossible. FN-2187 narrows his eyes behind his helmet, and tries to check for the truth the way he can sometimes – it’s risky, and it doesn’t always work, but –

-he feels something push /back/ and his eyes jolt open wide behind his mask.

“Yes.” Kylo Ren says. The vocoder gives no hint of his feelings. “Like that. You have potential, but are untrained.” That great black helmet tilts once more. A choice is made, paths fracturing and possibilities shifting. “You could learn from me. Grow your skill far beyond your peers, become untouchable and powerful.” Another shift, another choice. Kylo Ren spreads his hands. “With power, you will break your chains. No one ever will have power over you again.”

This is a choice.

Some say that power is a trap, that power corrupts and ruins. That one who chooses power is only motivated by greed, that choosing power is the first or last step on a path that leads to destruction. And for some, that is true.

(Kylo Ren on a walkway, his lightsaber in his hands -)

But FN-2187 is not thinking of conquest or revenge. He is not thinking of glory or respect. He is thinking about control, and all the freedom he doesn’t have. He is thinking about fear, so deeply ingrained in him that it feeds every thought, every action. He is thinking about, maybe, not feeling it anymore.

He looks at Kylo Ren, who lives in a nebulous half-world between the Order and not, uncontrollable and untouchable and unafraid.

FN-2178 nods, once.

Sometimes, the choice is this – live in fear, or grasp at any chance of freedom you find. 

There are choices, and reasons for those choices.

Years ago now, a boy who did not exist grew into a man that did not exist either. There was a shape he was supposed to fill, a dozen conflicting legacies that left a small desperate sliver where they overlapped, barely enough room to stand.

(Was it so complex? The past warps and twists when he looks at it, truth and whispers and things that were obvious at the time blurring into a haze. Paths stretching out in front of him, and yet, and yet)

The man who did not exist listened to the whispers and listened to the voices and when everything collapsed like he'd been told it would, he took the last option left open to him.

The choice offered: liberty or death. The choice offered: be who you have always been or suffocate under the weight of who you are expected to be. Power, that is the offer – power to break any restrictions, power to be whatever you wish, power to destroy any who try to control you.

(The present warps and twists, too, options presented as if they are the only ones. Everything has changed, and yet nothing has.)

FN-2187 has been told to inform no one that he is Force Sensitive, or the reason that Kylo Ren called him away.

The first part is unnecessary; the second is a concern, but when the supervising officer looks his way, FN-2187 directs his attention away easily.

With the Force, he thinks.

Officially, the Force is not real. A republican superstition that shows they are unfit to rule. But officers lie when they say so – and FN-2187 is a Finalizer trooper, and has seen Kylo Ren first hand.

There were things like that. Small gaps between what officers said and what was true, FN-2187 thinks.

Maybe he can find more of them.

He has also been instructed to /practice/.

"Is there a reason you've been stealing one of my stormtroopers?"

Hux. Hux, with his sneer and his pettiness and his rules. Hux, with his insistence that there is nothing in the universe he does not understand.

"I have the right to do so." A smirk behind his mask. "It's not interrupting his training."

Hux assumes it's sex. Hux assumes that it is some fleshy indulgence, that Ren is an unrestrained beast. Hux is no blushing virgin, but still thinks that contact is an annoyance to be dealt with, self-maintenance best left to schedule.

Hux snarls, but has no recourse and knows it. Ren stalks away with the last word.

Kylo Ren holds out his lightsaber. For a moment FN-2187 is certain that he’s about to die. Then yet another impossible thing – Kylo Ren flips the saber and offers FN-2187 the handle. The gesture is easy to interpret and difficult to obey.

The black helmet tilts. “Hold it. Nothing more.”

FN-2187 does not know how to deny an order, but he wants to. He takes it –

-and then jerks his hand away, gasping behind his mask, his palm stinging.

It felt like –

Like getting hit in the chest by a stun bolt. Like breaking a bone. Like a bone that’s /been/ broken, the throbbing ache of something wounded.

Kylo Ren catches the saber with the Force before it hits the ground. He does not seem surprised or angry.

“You feel the kyber crystal within the hilt.” Kylo taps the hilt and the sensation of suffering pings like a struck pipe. “It can be overwhelming, at first. One day, you will have your own.”

FN-2187 isn’t sure he wants it, if it feels like /that/. But he does not say this.

"Show me," Kylo says. FN-2187 hesitates, and then the Force ripples around him, blurring his appearance and blunting details. Valuable, perhaps, but not -

FN-2187 breaks off, frustration coloring his energy. "It doesn't work when you're looking at me."

Behind his mask, Kylo blinks. Is it nerves? He'd thought that was trained out of stormtroopers.

"Explain."

FN-2187's helmet tilts down, and he feels the trooper arranging words in his mind.

"...Stormtroopers are supposed to be invisible, on the ship," He says, and Kylo narrows his eyes, not following yet. "Inobtrusive. Most officers don't want to notice us. We're – in the background." Here, FN-2187 fidgets, just slightly, tugging on the edge of his armor. "I just make sure I stay in the background. But it doesn't work if they've already noticed me."

...hm.

A simple mind trick, relying on the Order's own prejudices to work. He remembers, for a moment, Organa talking to the boy that would become Kylo, telling him not to discount droids.

It's simple. It's /efficient/, the sort of thing that can be maintained almost indefinitely. It's clever. And yet…

"There are ways to hide that do not rely on such things." He finally says. "See if you can figure them out."

FN-2187 salutes and leaves. Ren remains, for a moment longer than he intends. He thinks about being nothing and no one, an impossible fantasy he hasn’t indulged since he was a child.

Kylo Ren says he is one apart, that he need not concern himself with the other stormtroopers. He is Special, and has Potential, and their fates are not his own.

But FN-2187 still watches his squad, because they are still His Squad. Not alike, maybe, but still his.

Slip is still clumsy, still too slow on the response. FN-2187 watches out of the corner of his eye while they drill, and -

It's a risk, and he knows it.

(It is a choice.)

He pushes the officer's eyes away from them for a little while - it's harder, to hide multiple people, and FN-2187 almost fumbles himself. He reevaluates, and attempts something else - he slides the illusion over Slip, just enough that Slip looks like the rest of them. Just enough that the officer's eyes pass over him without noticing any difference. It works on Nines, too, and Zeros' attention flickers over for a moment before passing on.

They finish the drill without any marks on Slip. He feels Slip's attention at him, curious, as they separate to their assigned duties, but they do not speak.

FN Squadron steps into a room and reality phases around them.

The walls are scrawled with blurred words, difficult to read and a bright red symbol. There is shouting, somewhere in the distance, indistinct. The mission brief flashes in their visor read out: suppress a civilian rebellion with all necessary force.

FN-2187 hesitates before stepping forward. They're never told if their enemies were simulated until after, but -

There is an odd echo, in the Force. Behind his mask he closes his eyes and feels out like radar - Slip, Zero, Nines around him - an officer, watching from somewhere high above. No one else.

A sim. Simulations mean he’ll be fighting droids or solid light, with programmed logic and sensors easier to fool.

But he can't react, he realizes. If he shows any sign of knowing it's a sim, then they will want to know how he could tell.

He swallows the knowledge and any advantages it might have brought him and his crew, and steps forward into the mission.

"Take your mask off."

He feels FN-2187's shock, sharp and sudden and bringing his presence back from where he had hidden. Troopers are not allowed to remove their masks except to eat - but "not allowed" is exactly the point Kylo needs to break.

Hesitation, cultural programming stalling him - but FN-2187 could break through it. He had been touched by the Force. There was nothing he could not do, if he so choose.

Hands on the latches, and with a hiss, the helmet comes off.

The trooper cringes, as if this were a test, but Kylo -

FN-2187 is lovely, Kylo thinks distantly. Lovely enough that he would not mind giving truth to rumor. But that is unimportant now.

"This mask, like your name, is one that was given to you." Kylo gestures, and the white helmet flies into his hands. "It is something done to you that you did not chose." He could crush it - no, not now. Not his to destroy. "In time, you will forge your own, such as I forged mine." Behind his metal mask, Kylo smirks. "But now? Try to get your mask back."

FN-2187 doesn’t manage it by the end of the night’s training. But he’s improved, at least, enough that Kylo tosses his helmet back, smiling a little behind his own.

Kylo sits on the floor of his chambers and bleeds.

He will be stronger. He is becoming stronger, with every drop of blood lost, every night of suffering, every day where the boundaries between the physical world and the Force grow blurry and insubstantial.

He is better for what Snoke puts him through, a broken bone regrowing twice as strong.

Strength is the only way to be free. Strength, the kind Snoke teaches him, is the only way for him to break through the boundaries of who others expect him to be. To destroy everyone who tries to shape him or control him.

One day, he thinks, it will not be worth it. One day there will be no more for Snoke to teach him, and this will end as the sith apprenticeships of old had ended. On that day, Kylo Ren will find out if he is capable of truly being free. Perhaps on that day, FN-2187 will fight by his side. The thought is satisfying, even though it is equally likely that they will be enemies then.

For now, this is worth it.

Phasma pulls him aside.

“Kylo Ren. What does he want with you?”

Phasma looks and she sees. You never tell an officer everything, and yet. FN-2187 does not know if he can lie to her directly, and now is not the time to find out.

“He said it was for – training, sir.” Not a lie. “I do not know what purpose it serves.” Still not a lie. “He watches as I do drills.” Not a lie, as long as she does not question the nature of the drills.

Troopers are not supposed to lie to officers. They are, especially, not supposed to lie to Phasma. It isn’t even possible, some argue – she cannot be fooled, cannot be deceived.

FN-2187 waits.

Eventually, Phasma dismisses him. FN-2187 walks away with a bubbling sensation in his chest. A moment later, he recognizes it, unfamiliar and sweet - /power./

  
Kylo Ren kneels before his master. Pain arcs up and down his body, muscles tense and jaw tight, but his posture does not falter. He will not falter.

"I know you are capable of better," his master says, echoing endlessly in the room and in his head. "I have always seen great potential in you. I know you will fulfill my expectations of you."

Under the fog and the masks, Kylo Ren thinks about FN-2187, about offering him the chance to never be controlled again. Never having to be anything but what he choses.

I chose this, Kylo Ren thinks. I chose this. All the pain will be worth it. I chose this.

It works, some.

FN-2187 awakes. He is not in his bunk.

He is alone in a room with white walls and white floors.

He knows this space. He knows it and his fear rips him apart, the gutting knowledge that this was always his fate, one day he would be found out -

White on white, his own skin the only color in the room. He's fading away, blending into the walls –

He had to have done something, had to have slipped up somewhere. You’re always put in the program for a reason. There is a reason, you’ve always done something wrong, it’s always /justified/. The system works. It has to work.

If it doesn’t work -

-he tries to touch the Force, tries to prove that this isn't real - and for a moment he's certain it won't work, that he could never touch the Force at all -

-he reaches out -

-and snags on Kylo Ren, watching somewhere unseen. He feels the flicker of pleasure, of pride, that FN-2187 reached out.

Training. This has to be training. There weren't any officers, just Kylo -

-unless it wasn't, unless this wasn't-

FN-2187 breathes, hard and fast, not the way he's been trained. He -

The automated systems click on. The lights get brighter, blurring the boundaries between wall and floor and armor. A low hum, barely on the edge of his perception, and his grip on the Force slides away.

He is alone in the white on white, alone with the whispering voices and dread.

FN-2187 drops away from himself, trying to block out the noise, trying to find some part of himself that the reconditioning program can't reach. He grabs hold of himself and carves it in, etching it on the inside of his skull: he is FN-2187 and he is Force sensitive, he has power and he is more than a mask, he is more than a tool, he wants to be more than a tool, he /wants/ and they have not taken that from him - 

Hours or days later, the humming fades into silence. FN-2187 pulls himself out, haltingly, unable to determine - he is alone and -

-suddenly, close enough to touch - Kylo Ren, a black smear against the white, solid enough to brace against. Half in his mind, half out of it, FN-2187 stumbles through flickers of a dark cave, no light and no sound and no sensation.

FN-2187 comes up out of himself gasping behind his mask. His hands are shaking. He's on his knees on the white floor. Kylo Ren stands in front of him, black mask tilted as if curious.

"Interesting." It takes FN-2187 a moment to process that words have been spoken. "I always tried to destroy my surroundings first. But you've done well."

It was a test, after all – it was training. It was -

He just stares up at his instructor, the one who put him in this chamber of white on white - trusted, and yet - and cannot process what he is feeling.

The officers are not your squadmates, he thinks later, and it rings true in the Force. They are not obligated to protect you.

But Kylo remains – both and neither, a chance offered to step out of the system.

Power. 

The next day, Hux tracks Kylo down and glares at him until he growls, demanding to know what he wants.

"What I want," Hux says, and he is glowing with irritation in the Force. "Is for you to stop unnecessarily risking my assets." 

Ren's mask hides his face, and Hux is a total Force Null, but somehow Ren's complete confusion is visible. Hux looks towards the ceiling for a moment, and lets out a breath.

"Reconditioning is a last resort solution, trying to get some use out of troopers that would otherwise be destroyed." Hux speaks as though he has the words memorized. He usually speaks like that, however. "It carries with it a ten percent chance of suicide attempts during the process with a thirty percent chance of suicide attempts later on, and reconditioned troopers display less personal initiative than non reconditioned troopers. All of which increases with repeated sessions, and all of which you would know /if you had spent a moment researching before putting one of my most promising soldiers through it/."

Ren does not respond. His mind is filled with memories of his master promising strength, if only he can endure longer -

Hux steps closer. Ren does not think to push him away. "I've tolerated you stealing one of my soldiers, but the moment it starts to compromise his efficiency as a weapon this will end."

Hux stalks away. Ren lets him get the last word, for once.

Another sim. Infiltration, this time, with no casualties preferred. FN-2187 steps forward to lead and then –

-hesitates.

He’s jittery, his orders less certain, his ideas less sure. There is a fog of doubt, now, thin but ever present, between him and any confidence in his judgement. He isn’t even completely sure it’s a sim. Maybe his enemies are alive, maybe -

Normal signs, he knows, of someone having been through reconditioning. Troopers whisper about it, amongst themselves, how to tell.

Nines doesn’t notice, too focused on achieving the mission set before them. Phasma notices, he thinks, but all she does after the mission is focus her attention on him for a long moment and then say nothing.

Slip notices. Slip notices and doesn’t say anything either, just bumps shoulders with him after the sim, and leans against him for a while before they have to go to their separate bunks. Like any trooper would after a squadmate goes through reconditioning, even though they’re not supposed to.

It doesn’t make the fog fade, but it helps, some.

Kylo Ren reads the reports.

He hadn't, before - he recognized the similarity to his own training, and so understood it on a level that officers writing about the process from the outside could never reach.

But the response was unexpected, and what Hux said - Hux says a lot of things.

He must investigate what Hux thinks so that he may better argue against him. That's all.

The goals of reconditioning are not what Kylo expected. The stated goals, the reason the Order puts stormtroopers through the process, this process so much like his own training –

“Officers should under no circumstances undergo this process,” he reads, “as it can compromise individuality and initiative-“

-he cannot doubt. He is not allowed secrets and he is not allowed /doubt/ -

Snoke will likely call on him soon. Kylo puts his datapad down, and breathes.

Kylo Ren does not come to retrieve him that night. Slip feels sorry for him and Nines feels smug, amused that FN-2187 keeps watching the door. They both assume that Kylo is using him for sex, which is an easy excuse, and that Kylo is bored with him. FN-2187 is not certain. They have not met since Kylo put him into the reconditioning chamber and then pulled him out.

FN-2187 stills on his bunk, sharp and sudden, something's -

Nines snorts, makes a joke about rough treatment - and Slip gets angry, and in the argument FN-2187 lets himself drop from their minds and slip out of the door.

He's gotten better at being invisible.

Patrols are easy to dodge, and he’s learned how to muffle his steps and bend light enough that droids don't notice him.

Something else does.

Some great and terrible awareness sweeps out and it almost feels like - but it isn't, it isn't, and FN-2187 is dropping into a deeper invisibility in an instant, deeper than he has before -

That awareness pauses over the place that FN-2187 was a moment ago, the place his physical form still is - it prods and pokes and tries to find him, tries to grab onto some scrap of selfhood. But FN-2187's selfhood is hidden away, tight and small where no one can find it, and the awareness eventually slips away and FN-2187 is left shaking, afraid to come back to perceivable levels of existence.

It felt like Kylo Ren. It /felt/ like Kylo Ren, but it was not, it was not him. And FN-2187 does not know who it was.

He hesitates in the hall, knowing that his – mentor? ally? – was in the grip of something far bigger and stronger than them both.

Then returns to his bunk, to a place of relative safety. Slip and Nines are still arguing, and did not notice he was ever gone.

"Previously my Master had retained me for my own training," Kylo Ren says, an explanation without apology. "I trust you continued practicing on your own."

FN-2187 nods; he has reached a level of secrecy that surprises him. From that secrecy he peers out at Kylo - Kylo is exhausted, pushing through it, and -

There are ragged edges at the edges of his mind. Chips like broken armor, and something else - someone else - filling the cracks. Kylo Ren has been shifted, rearranged somehow, like -

-like a trooper right out of reconditioning, FN-2187 thinks, something inside of them cracked open so that the officers can put their own thoughts in –

A dark chamber, no light, no sound, the screaming isolation with nothing except the thought that this will make him stronger, it must –

It's an instinct, at first. Then it is a choice - to follow the instinct, knowing the risk that might come from it.

Kylo Ren is singular, alone. There are rumors of others like him but they are not here, and Kylo Ren has no one.

FN-2187 reaches out with the Force. A gentle tap, like a shoulder bump in the hallway. Just a reminder: hey, I'm here.

Later, he will curse the risk, the exposure. Later he will think of what it means, what that great and terrible power he felt could do to a mind, what it has already done.

But here and now, in the stillness before Ren shakes off the touch, there is just an offer and the surprise at it.

Ren shakes off the touch. "It is necessary to make me strong," he says, and FN-2187 knows that he believes it.

FN-2187 realizes, sharp and sudden, how this ends. No wonder Ren was so casual about putting him into reconditioning, no wonder Ren thought -

Freedom, he thinks. Freedom and power and the ability to choose his own destiny, to never be shaped by anyone else ever again. To be strong enough to never be – hurt.

An offer made, and yet.

FN-2187 moves to take his helmet off - and then he hesitates. Behind his mask, he swallows, and makes a choice.

"I want to see your face too." Belatedly, he thinks that maybe it is forbidden, that this is the thing that is too much to ask -

He feels something ring in the Force, like a ball falling one way rather than another. And Kylo Ren's hands go up to his mask. A hiss, and FN-2181 barely breaths until -

Oh, he thinks. Oh.

Kylo Ren looks down, only meeting his eyes for a second. He looks - like a person, skin and eyes and -

FN-2187 swallows, half reaches out before pausing. Ren looks up again.

"You - hair." FN-2187 says, stupidly. Thick and /messy/ tumbling out in loose waves, as uncontainable as the man. FN-2187 wants to touch it. He wants to touch Ren's face. He is allowed to want things. And even if he is not allowed, he can do it anyway. No one can stop him, he thinks. Except for perhaps that sweeping, searching presence – but whatever that was has not noticed him yet.

(You can make a place inside of yourself that no one can touch, shore up walls and keep the things that matter there. It costs - dear stars, it costs, blood and sweat and effort, but for a while at least, you can keep yourself yours.)

Kylo Ren blinks. His face takes color so easily. His hand moves towards his hair before dropping down again.

With the mask gone, some layer of shielding has dropped away. From behind his own shields, FN-2187 peers out at the half healed cracks, the places where that larger force has interfered. The fear of never being what is expected. And yet - a snarling, vicious ambition to never allow anyone else to define him. Freedom, desired and not yet claimed.

Like me, FN-2187 remembers.

His entire life he has be alone. In a system designed so that everyone was the same, there was never anyone like him.

Kylo Ren is not his reflection. But – close enough to be understood, maybe.

FN-2187 twitches his shields out, allows himself to be seen, just a little. An acknowledgement, a signal back in the dark. And Kylo Ren does something even more impossible –

-he looks at FN-2187, and he smiles.

They are on the planet.

FN-2187 does not know if the planet has a name. He has always known it as Starkiller Base, and has only recently begun to wonder if it existed before being a weapon.

Kylo Ren has pulled him out of his duties and taken him down to the planet. It is bitterly cold.

There is - noise, on the edge of his perception. It's getting louder, but FN-2187 still can't tell what it is. It is not speech, or - suddenly he is reminded of the mess hall, where everyone is talking at once before being silenced.

The black helmet tilts to the side half an angle, and FN-2187 feels Kylo Ren's attention flicker to him even as the helmet tilts forward again.

"In the Old Republic," Ren says, speaking of that previous time that never appears in the trooper's studies, "This planet was sacred to the Jedi." Ren steps off the path and after a moment, FN-2187 follows him. "The reason is the same it is important to the Order - Kyber." The word takes a moment to be familiar – the aching pain that echoes from Ren’s saber. "It was tradition for jedi students to travel here to find the crystal that would form the base of their lightsaber."

There is an echo of something, FN-2187 thinks, below those words. A line stretching back longer than he has words for, a tradition unbroken until it suddenly was. Grief, he thinks it is - for certainty, for knowing exactly where you are supposed to be. He felt that, once, he thinks, but it faded as he grew and grew apart from his peers. There is a longing to it, and he thinks it isn't just his.

But it is, some.

He does not say this, just follows Kylo Ren down into a mining shaft and into chattering noise.

Soon, the cave glitters with red. Red crystals - kyber, he thinks. 

"Should they..." FN-2187 swallows behind his mask. "Are they supposed to be red?" They don't want to be red, except they're rocks and can't want things, except he is suddenly viscerally aware that they are not just rocks. This is what he has been hearing, the power and will in these glittering red crystals.

"Should," Ren says, gloved fingers brushing a crystal on the wall and making it sparkle, "Is immaterial. There is only 'could'. There is only potential and those strong enough to claim it."

FN-2187 hears - that slight dissonance that he watches for, now. The sign that someone is saying something they do not fully believe. FN-2187 does not mention it. Kylo Ren is not like any officer he has ever had before, but he is still an officer, and FN-2187 knows to never tell an officer everything.

Ren pulls his fingers away from the wall and a red crystal comes with them, floating an inch away from his fingertips. "But no, they do not begin as red. The raw crystal is clear, and when the Force user it is meant for touches it, it changes color." Meant for, FN-2187 wonders. "Red, however. You have noticed they have a will?" FN-2187 nods. "For the crystal to turn red and unlock it's full power, it must be bled; its will and intent overpowered and tied to your own."

FN-2187 swallows again. Bled, yes. This place feels like it is bleeding, each crystal crying out in pain. For a moment he is aware of the planet, of every crystal glittering in its depths, and the singular intent shackling them all to a single purpose.

It is not Ren’s, he thinks, and it scares him.

FN-2187 turns, then, almost unconsciously, because under the current of red red blood pain red – he steps forward, and Ren lets him. FN-2178 drops into meditation and tugs off his gloves almost without noticing, following –

-a million possibilities flash before his eyes, each crystal a choice, each facet a future –

The jedi believed that the crystal chose the jedi, that you would find the crystal meant for you and no other would respond to you.

The jedi believed a lot of things.

The truth is this: there is nothing unchangeable, there is no destiny and no fate. There is nothing meant to be. There is only good matches and bad ones, there is only /resonance/. There are only weapons and the person you must become to wield them.

FN-2187’s fingers brush against a red crystal – a flicker of potential –

-white armor scorched black from blasterfire and corpse ash, a comradery of blood and destruction – a weapon leashed to the same will that leashes this crystal –

FN-2187 pulls his fingers away and keeps moving on.

Another red crystal – a brutal freedom, the kind that comes of being the slavemaster instead of the slave, holding the chain instead of wearing it. He hesitates, weighing the cost, and pulls his fingers away.

He walks on, fingers against the wall, flickers of futures considered and abandoned. Violence and power and the power of violence and all of it bleeding, pain and blood bound to another’s will, futures of walking someone else’s path –

He pauses. His fingers are almost touching a clear crystal. It feels like – open potential, no one but himself and the quiet almost-mind of the stone.

It feels like /options/.

He pulls it from the wall. Against his skin it shimmers and shifts, settling into a white warmer and more vital than his armor and the snow. He lifts it up, looks at it in the mineshaft lighting, and thinks there is a green cast to it, flickering in and out of sight. Not green, but the impression of green.

He walks back to where Ren is waiting for him. Ren hands him his abandoned gloves and FN-2187 holds up the crystal. He is suddenly afraid that he made the wrong choice – that he was expected to take one of the red crystals. But Ren only nods.

“It is best to bleed your crystal yourself. Yours has a strong will. It will make a powerful blade.”

FN-2187 pulls his gloves back on. On the inside of his mind, behind partitions and fog, a choice is being made.

A late night, long past any curfew. They should be training. They should be training, but they are not.

Kylo Ren has his helmet off, and FN-2187 is fascinated by the braids in his hair - officers never have anything like it, and stormtroopers are never allowed to have hair long enough for it. It's an old Alderaan style, but FN-2187 doesn't know that, and Kylo finds that freeing.

FN-2187 touches his hair, tugs on the braids - apologizes when one of them comes loose. But Kylo shushes him, laughing, and tells him to fix it with the Force. Training with fine control, he says, but he's teasing.

FN-2187 gets close, closer than he gets with anyone else, closer than anyone else ever gets to Kylo Ren - studies the braids with careful fingers and tugs. Kylo leans back against FN-2187, and lets him look as long as he wants.

It's not training, but if they pretend it is, it's easier.

"You have progressed much, since we began. Show me."

FN-2187 swallows, closes his eyes. He considers hiding in his armor, but he thinks that it won't work on Kylo. He hopes it won't. So instead, he bends light and muffles sound, quiets his mind and steps away form himself.

He feels Kylo's attention on him, with his eyes and with his power. He hesitates, just a little, and then - a choice made - he lets the hiding crack, lets portions of himself appear and flicker out of perception. Lets himself be visible in the Force, lets himself be seen, and in doing so, hides the full capability of what he can do.

Kylo circles around him, nodding, prodding at the cracks and investigating the flickers.

"This would fool the unwary, and those who cannot see as we can." Kylo tugs on a strand of illusion with the Force, and FN-2187 lets it go. "But you cannot hide from me."

Deep within the illusion under the illusion, where Kylo Ren has not looked, FN-2187 is grimly satisfied.

He could disappear. FN-2187 knows it, now – he could disappear onto a ship and then slip off of it onto some planet where no one knows him. No potential to live up to, no destiny to fulfill.

He could be no one.

But he would be alone.

Slip would be unprotected, Kylo Ren left without any squadmates. FN-2187 does not think he can hide them and protect himself, and doubts they would be willing to go with him.

There are still options. 

Snoke stares down at him. Kylo Ren feels claws rake through his mind - he breathes and lets it happen, lets his mind become fog, untouched and untouchable.

FN-2187, sympathy offered after training, as if it were a misery shared -

Don't think of him, not now.

"General Hux," Snoke says, his voice booming, the pressure in Kylo's mind not relenting, "has complained of you being distracted with a particular trooper."

Annoyance, not feigned. "Hux always complains."

He should tell his master. He should make FN-2187 a knight, train him with the others, let him reach his full potential -

-and lose quiet moments, skin against skin, the brush of /potential/ for something besides knighthood, the moments where they can escape being who they are -

Don't think about it. Not now.

The claws rake through and his mind swirls and reforms.

"See that you do not forget your training, my apprentice. Even for your mortal passions."

"Of course, master."

Snoke dismisses him, and Kylo does not know if he has passed the test. He never does, until after.

Sex is not a universal human need, despite what some say. It is not even a universal want. There need not be magic in the touching of bodies, and the sharing of fluids is not always the sharing of souls. Even touch is not needed, for some.

What is universal, though -

Masks off, gloves shed carelessly on the floor, armor loosened - bodies and minds close, closer than they know they should allow themselves to be - touch in silence, touch for no reason except for the novelty of touch, for no reason than that here it is allowed. Careful fingertips against skin that hasn't know friendly touch in years, if ever, an exploration with hands relearning that they can touch without hurting others.

It isn't sexual. It is -

Sex is not a universal need. Touch, even, is not a universal need. The most universal need is for /safety/, it is for trust, it is for knowing there is a place somewhere in the galaxy where you can lower your guard. It is for looking at another and being seen, knowing that here and now you are not alone -

Hands, palm to palm, holding and not letting go.

Another meeting, kneeling before his master, pain arcing through his body.

Hux's words about compromising an asset flash through his mind, and are just as quickly buried.

(if this is reconditioning, if this is wringing the last ounces of use from a weapon before it is destroyed, if if if -)

(it cannot be but what if it /is/)

"I have sensed a great change approaching." Kylo Ren listens and breathes, in and out. "A time where choices will be made and destinies forged." It rings true, and Kylo lets it pass through him and echo back from infinity and it still sounds true. “You will choose, then, who you must be.” A beat, the pause between in the inhale and the exhale, when the heart is still and not beating.

"You know what you must do."

Behind his mask, the man who was once Ben Solo closes his eyes. He nods, once.

Later, he will not be able to recall: was it his own idea, or was it his master's? Did he come to this solution on his own, or was he tugged to it, each conclusion shaped and prepared for him to find it?

He will not know. He will not be able to tell, and that will be terrifying. But that is later, and now the conclusion is terrifying on its own, now he buries his fear under fog and masks, because as FN-2187 has learned so has he taught.

Above him, Snoke praises his dedication and his readiness. Within him, a part of him is shaking with the knowledge that he /does not want to do this/.

He must.

(for the first time, his mask feels constricting)

There are no fixed points. There are only people, and situations, and choices made. And yet sometimes, that choice is always the same, the equation always coming out the same so long as the variables are the same.

Sometimes, things always happen.

Kylo Ren will go to Jakku, chasing whispers of information. He will go, because he has been bid - because he thinks that if he destroys everything that made him they will no longer have any power over him; if he destroys everyone who has ever known him he will have space to remake himself into whatever image he choses.

He will go, and take stormtroopers with him.

In another time, he takes FN squadron because Phasma choses - she wants to test the mettle of a potential captain, wants to thin out dead weight. He doesn't care who goes with him. It doesn't matter.

This time, he asks for the squadron specifically. This time, Phasma tilts her helmet at him and he feels her suspicion, her mind flickering through every rumor of his favoring FN-2187, every report of odd behavior. She has no reason to refuse, but she pauses, weighing the options.

She allows it, but he knows he is getting sloppy. But soon it won't matter – soon choices will be made, he thinks, and destinies set on a path that cannot be changed.

Tomorrow, the squadron will see live combat. Kylo Ren warned him before the orders came through, whispering against his neck about destiny, about fighting side by side.

FN-2187 thinks that perhaps he should seek out Kylo, but instead, he ducks out of his assignment and looks for Slip instead. Maybe FN-2187 can help him out with his drills without being noticed.

Slip looks across the training room and sees him. FN-2187 shouldn't be visible, but -

But he's hiding in the armor, right now, becoming invisible like a stormtrooper. It works on officers, and it works on Nines -

But Slip looks at him and sees him, through the illusion and through the mask. FN-2187 should hide deeper, try to erase the image of himself before Slip can alert anyone - but Slip doesn't react, doesn't demand to know what he's doing. There's just recognition and a sort of bittersweet understanding, a gulf between them that they don't know how to cross. A thankfulness for trying, even if it won't help.

Slip looks away and continues his training sequence.

FN-2187 goes to Jakku. He goes as a soldier, nothing more - and yet, everyone knows that is not true. The other troopers stare, and Kylo stands a little too close. He can feel Kylo's attention on him.

And then they land, and Kylo’s attention isn’t on him at all. 

Slip dies.

Slip dies, and FN-2187 can do nothing to stop it. He doesn't know how to heal. He doesn't know if healing is something you can do. All he knows is how to hide and how to kill. Slip bleeds out into the sand, dying in a war neither of them chose to join.

Slip dies, and his blood on FN-2187's helmet feels like a burn. Like an omen, like an answer.

The unbled kyber crystal rings under his armor. Visions flicker in front of him, choices and paths. He is again in the caves, asked to decide his future.

FN-2187 looks at Slip, dead and torn apart. He looks at Kylo Ren, powerful and untouchable and still torn apart.

FN-2187 sits in the troop transport, Slip’s blood still smeared on his helmet. Kylo Ren’s mind is flaring out like a supernova, tearing itself apart, unaware of anyone but the prisoner. FN-2187 fades into the background. The only person who would notice is gone.

Choices upon choices tumbling around in his head, made and remade over and over until something settles on the top of his mind - a single thought, clear and unavoidable as the crystal on his chest.

(Through the Force, all things are possible for those who dare to claim it.)

FN-2187 closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and lets it out.

There is no choice that must be made. There are no fixed points, no self correcting power to history that demands it go along one path over the another. There is only us, only life and physics and chance. There is no destiny but what we build for ourselves.

And yet, and yet. Choices come with a cost. Sometimes, we look at the paths ahead of us and know that that only one is worth the payment. There are only choices, and the person you become in the making of them. There are only possibilities, and the person you are willing to be. 

A thousand million fractal timelines, and in every one where FN-2187 is faced with this choice he makes the same one.

Finn opens his eyes.

He needs to go. He needs a pilot.

He’s gotten pretty good at avoiding detection.

Kylo Ren stares through his mask. Something on the inside of his chest is caving in, shattering under the force of -

Dameron is bracing to run, Dameron is - irrelevant, he doesn't matter, not when-

FN-2187 does not run. He does not brace himself, try to pretend he isn't doing what he obviously is. FN-2187 is blazing with certainty in the Force, present and glowing and unhidden. Kylo Ren does not think about this, even though he should.

Ren should run him through, should take them both in, should, should -

"F-"

"Finn. It's Finn, now." Looking at him now feels like staring into crystal, like staring into a star, every single part of his mind aligned and shining. "I decided on a name. I - decided on a few things."

Kylo Ren does not reach for his saber. He should.

He should be angry, he thinks. He is, somewhere distant, muffled - but this moment is bubbled and untouchable, a walkway with only him and Finn on it.

"I can't stay here. I - I won't. I'm not going to kill for them and I'm not going to die for them." Finn meets his eyes through two layers of mask and he is crystal, he is kyber certainty and power, he is unshakable. "This is my choice and I'm making it."

Then - a faultline in the certainty, a chunk of crystal cleaving off and falling -

"Come with me?"

The crystal shatters on the floor into shards of choice, a million possibilities surrounding them. Kylo Ren heaves in a breath, but there's no air, nothing is -

"I - I'll go without you, if I have to. I'm not going to stay, but - I don't want to go without you." Choices sparkle on the floor around them and Finn reaches a hand out. "Come with me. We can be no one, no destiny, no potential. No one determining our future but us. No one controlling our lives ever again."

It is not that simple. It is never that simple, and Kylo Ren knows this, and the boy called Ben knew this, and -

Behind his mask, Kylo Ren closes his eyes.

"Please?"

Kylo opens his eyes.

"Yeah. Okay."

**Author's Note:**

> "I can wrap up this in 10k," I thought, "it doesn't need to be a full canon rewrite..."
> 
> It's gonna be a canon rewrite.


End file.
